As more people gain access to the Internet, more information and functionality has been made available over the World Wide Web. For example, some computer program applications offering functionality for completing a specific task or range of tasks (e.g., word processing applications) that were once available only on personal computers or on terminals in a local area network are now available via the web. These web-based applications, also referred to herein as web applications, are growing in number and many offer functionality similar to that available by computer programs executing locally on personal computers.
Traditionally, web applications are accessible via a web browser and may offer many different types of functionality that may be available on many different web pages. For example, a web application offering business functionality to small businesses may have web pages offering functions such as a business contact manager for organizing client or vendor information, a project manager for organizing timelines and goals for products, and a time manager for organizing employee time and payroll. Each of these functions may be available through the same web application for a small business, but customers may interact with these functions through a different web page or different web pages of the web application (i.e., at least one web page for the business contact manager, and at least one different web page for the project manager).
Navigating between the web pages hosting different functions of a web application may be accomplished through the use of a navigation bar on the web pages. For example, a navigation bar on a “main menu” web page may comprise a list of elements. Each element may be a link to a web application component associated with a web application, such as a link directly to a web page or a link to a collection of web pages such as in a folder in a web server's file system. The folder may be configured to display a default web page when a user's web browser navigates to it. A web application component could also be a script containing instructions to be executed on either a client computer or a server to carry out a specific task or specific tasks.
Web pages may be associated with different functions of the web application, such as a business contact manager or a project manager. The navigation bar may then change depending on which web page the user is viewing. For example, when a user navigates away from the “main menu” web page, the navigation bar may change from a list of links to functions to a list of links to web application components for sub-functions. Exemplary sub-functions may be client contacts and vendor contacts, and each sub-function may have a web page for it within the collection of web pages for the business contact manager functionality.
The functions of web applications may be available to users based on a subscription service. In other words, an organization, such as a small business, may have a subscription to a web application, and the employees of the organization may be users of the web application. The exact functions made available to a user may vary depending on the type of subscription an organization has to the web application. For example, users whose organization has a “basic” subscription may have access to the business contact manager functionality of the above example, but the project manager functionality may only be available to those users whose organization has a “premium” subscription.